Post Baby Body…I want to love you…buuuuut I don’t

I read a lot of blogs, a lot of online articles and a lot of social media posts. I am reading oodles of articles regarding female empowerment. Specifically I am seeing a lot of written pieces regarding mothers embracing their post baby bodies. Millions of women are banding together celebrating their scars, deflated breasts and jiggly parts. That is ah-mazing. Ladies you go ON with your bad selves. Own it. Own it all. We mothers have done something completely incredible and we SHOULD be proud.

My truth is I am so jealous of these women. I want to be them. I want to read these beautiful and empowering articles and think to myself, “YAAAAAAS! SLAY! I LOVE MY POST BABY BODY DAMMIT!”

Before kids I was t.i.n.y, maybe 100 pounds soaking wet. I was young and I had the energy to work out for hours and party for even more hours. My body took a damn beating for a few years there…but nothing seemed to really affect it. I was a size ZERO. Go on. Start your swearing. You can hate on that. I hate bitches in a zero now too. I will not lie. I am still fairly small according to today’s American standards, and probably shoud be thankful that after four babies I am still 115-120 pounds. I know, I know, some of you just threw your middle finger up right at the computer screen. Those number on the scale lie though…numbers say skinny…brain says destroyed.

Nine years ago Little miss first born came along.

My little lovely pride and joy.

My sweet first born baby.

The daughter I had dreamed of probably for my whole life.

The daughter who came to be because of a miscarriage I suffered months before her conception. My little rainbow baby gave me EVERYTHING. She gave me life and changed my whole trajectory. It was her who made me realize that motherhood was everything. That little gem also changed my body. I gained 67 pounds with her. Do you know what happens to a body that stretches from 100 pounds to 167 pounds in 9 months???

Whoa. The road back to my pre-baby body was a bi-atch. The problem was I was so naive. I really thought it might simply snap back. One year…two years…another baby…a few more years…keep running…keep dieting…keep doing crunches. It will come back they said. These things take time they said.

TWIN pregnancy…shiiiiiiiit…third c-section…back on the treadmill…keep working…your body will snap back…relax you have had four babies in a few years. NO ONE TOLD ME. No one told me that no matter what the scale said, body parts would be changed and destroyed for EVER. Had I KNOWN the truths of the post baby body I might have better prepared myself for the aftermath. Maybe it would have been easier to embrace this new me, love this new me.

Still don’t though.

Still hate the stretch marks…

Still hate the pouch that hangs over my c-section scar collection…

Still hate the square butt…

and the pancake boobs that have resulted from ten years of feeding humans.

My hair has changed, skin has changed, foot size has changed. My hormones and cycles have changed. Everything has changed! Underneath those skinny jeans, Spanx and Target shirt I am a changed woman. I can admit to the world and myself that I simply don’t love her as much, but I keep reading these empowering articles hoping they catch fire in my brain. I think they might be doing the opposite. I think they might be making me feel badly for feeling differently. Great, now I am supposed to love this old beaten body like all of these other women…but I don’t.

Another fail.

In a matter of speaking my body did snap back…just not to what it was ten years ago. Recently I have stopped chasing the ridiculous dream of the “snap-back.” Why on earth am I trying to look like I did when I was 20? Post babies I ran, I walked, I ate healthy, I breastfed all of those little hoodlums. I tried to love that new body. Really I wanted to, it seemed the en-vogue thing to do. I’m just not there yet mentally. Perhaps someday I will get to that magical place where I am truly comfortable in my new stretchmark-laced and cellulite-dimpled skin.

So there. It has been said. The truth has been spoken.

I don’t really love what bearing four children in a few years has done to my body…

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